The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You about What They've Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War

American Legacy Book Awards Winner "The harrowing accounts detail the experiencesof 11 US soldiers and Marines who have been ravaged by modern warfare and its psychological aftermath. What makes Kevin's reporting unique and essential is that it didn't stop on the battlefield--he followed his subjects home." -- Vice An important look at the unspoken and unknown truths of war and its impact, told through the personal stories of those who have been there. In The Things They Cannot Say, eleven soldiers and Marines display a courage that transcends battlefield heroics--they share the truth about their wars. For each it means something different: one struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love, another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man, while yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him. Award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks the difficult questions of these combatants, many of whom he first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq and others he sought out from different wars: What is it like to kill? What is it like to be under fire? How do you know what's right? What can you never forget? Sites compiles the accounts of soldiers, Marines, their families and friends, and also shares the narrative of his own failures during war (including complicity in a murder) and the redemptive powers of storytelling in arresting a spiraling path of self-destruction. He learns that war both gives and takes from those most involved in it. Some struggle in disequilibrium, while others find balance, usually with the help of communities who have learned to listen, without judgment, to the real stories of the men and women it has sent to fight its battles.

About the Author :
Kevin Sites is an award-winning journalist and author. He has worked as a reporter for more than thirty years, half of that covering war and disaster for ABC, NBC, CNN, Yahoo News, and Vice News. He was a 2010 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and a 2012 Dart Fellow in Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. For a decade he lived and taught in Hong Kong as an associate professor of practice in journalism at the University of Hong Kong. He's the author of three books on war, In the Hot Zone, The Things They Cannot Say, and Swimming with Warlords. The Ocean Above Me is his first novel. He lives in Oregon.

Review :
"The harrowing accounts detail the experiencesof 11 US soldiers and Marines who have been ravaged by modern warfare and its psychological aftermath. What makes Kevin's reporting unique and essential is that it didn't stop on the battlefield--he followed his subjects home." - Vice "Sites highlights the importance of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and sharing stories. Most importantly, he forces readers, those average civilians, to look at what war does to people and think about whether it's always worth it." - San Francisco Chronicle "This is tough stuff, as many of the experiences recounted here are graphic, cruel, and bloody, but they offer an intimate look at the costs of war on a personal, elemental level." - Booklist "Riveting and emotionally raw...These gripping stories...are evidence of a profound desire to heal." - Publishers Weekly "In sensitive, honest prose, the author emphasizes that this is a book about hope. An important book for warriors and the communities that send them to war." - Kirkus Reviews A gritty look at postwar distress, including veterans' personal accounts, by a journalist with his own intimate perspective on the subject. - Shelf Awareness (Bruce Jacobs of Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, KS A vivid set of portrats of modern combatants written in prose taht moves with speed and heat." - Edward Tick, Ph. D., codirector of Soldier's Heart and author of of War and Soul